


Is It Okay?

by WolfVenom



Category: Kong: Skull Island (2017)
Genre: Character Death, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-06 10:06:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10332197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfVenom/pseuds/WolfVenom
Summary: Growing up a golden boy in America, Slivko learned to keep himself and his feelings locked just as tight as the box holding his comrades' dog tags. But he realizes, maybe here where America and its ideals cannot touch him, he can let go and be himself, in this place where he can be accepted for who he is. Conrad is always there to help.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Props to Kaciart at Tumblr for blessing me with their amazing art and ideas, from which I got this one!

When Marlow had deliriously lead them into the village, Slivko had his firearm practically glued to his hands, eyes flitting around anything that moved in a whisper of wind like a demented cat. His tensed shoulders softened slightly when the reinforced wooden gate closed behind them, but he stuck close to Mason and Conrad like he would be snatched up by a monstrous tree if he strayed too far.

 

Marlow introduced them to the chiefs, he himself none so boisterous as before in the otherwise silent society of natives. Conrad stood shoulder to shoulder with Mason and greeted their hosts, still following Marlow’s every guide and step. He shows them the crop fields and the huts, a group of children weaving poorly done scarves with their fathers while the women prepare food. 

 

The crazed soldier shows every nook and cranny of his newfound home to his guests, and San and Houston marvel at the wonders with their hands intertwined. Slivko swallows a thick lump and cracks his neck, gazing around at the pure domesticity of this lifestyle. He gazes at San and Houston again, looks around the village immediately after, and envisions the life they would lead if they were apart of the tribe. A wife and a husband, so normal and celebrated in America. 

 

Because a man was supposed to marry a woman, and have kids and those kids would be drafted into war eighteen years later, just like Reg. 

 

Slivko grimaced and holstered his rifle over his arm, mindful of the radio strapped to his back. He would win this war, of course, because he didn't want any more boys sent to their deaths like that. Sent away before they could find themselves a nice girl and have good kids. 

 

Reg hung his head. He didn't want a nice girl. And that was wrong, according to pops. So he brushed off his shame and followed Mason to the river bank. 

 

And he- stopped… 

 

Mason crouched down in front of two natives, grinning and asking for a picture. They did not smile, did not respond, but they blinked slowly with the most curt of nods in acceptance. They sat shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, the paint on their arms smudged where they rubbed against one another, and along their knuckles where they held their hands. 

 

At the river bank, enjoying a bowl of scavenged berries, sat two men. Fairly intimate in America's standards, as he noticed before. And for a heartbeat, Slivko felt that this was something that he had needed for himself for a long time coming. 

 

As quick as the feeling washed upon him, he shook his head and slapped himself once in the face. It wouldn't do him good getting hopeful when the pickup was only in a few hours. He turned tail to retreat to the quarters they were given for the night, and ran headfirst into Conrad’s chest. The captain ushered him upright and boxed him in from running away. Slivko stiffened and straightened his spine in respect. 

 

“Easy, Slivko. How’re you doing?” he asked, rubbing a comforting hand along Slivko’s bicep. The soldier tensed, just a little, before averting his eyes from that gentle hand on his arm and switching gazes to the village. 

 

“It's something alright. A lot to take in, and there's just-” he didn't finish his thought, eying the couple by the banks for maybe a little longer than necessary. 

 

Something in Conrad shifted in that time. Conrad followed his sights to the two men, and his arm dropped from Slivko’s. He turned to face the younger, an argument on his lips, when-

 

“I wish I could be myself like that-”

 

“Don't talk to them if you're just going to slander-”

 

Both of their words jumbled in with the others and ended before the sentence could be complete. Slivko looked at Conrad with an incredulous stare, and Conrad looked at him in bewilderment. 

 

Slivko heated up and turned tail to flee to his own embarrassing demise, but he was caught once more by the elbow, the whiplash nearly having him take a tumble into the captain's arms. 

 

Now his captain knew his secret, he couldn't hang around, Conrad would be disgusted, he-

 

“Slivko… I was saying, there's nothing wrong with that. With being attracted to men,” Conrad was saying once more, gentle, as if he was calming a spooked deer. And in some ways, a way that pulled a tiny smile to Slivko’s lips, he thought it true. 

 

“You… you sure about that captain? All my life I was told to settle down with a pretty lady and be a good soldier. Hard to do that when you're ogling your lieutenants,” he replied, quietly, as to not be overheard by anyone but Conrad. 

 

Said captain smiled warmly, “I've been jungling and travelling uncharted lands since I was young. You see things and are apart of things bigger than the standards people have set for you back home. You learn to let go of what people there want for you and find what you need for yourself. 

 

“No one but us can reach you, here. These men and women, they're your brothers and sisters and we’re with you till we chopper out of here or we die trying.” 

 

Slivko swallowed hard around that last bit. He'd seen plenty of what this island could do to a man already. Dying like that, without seeing his mama again, that wasn't something on his checklist. 

 

Wetting his drying lips, Slivko looked back up into Conrad's eyes and let himself give in. A suppressed smile of gratitude and tears long bottled up leaking from his eyes like a cracked faucet. Conrad patted his back through the small tremors, handed him a kerchief to wipe his nose and only a minute later they both composed themselves and straightened. 

 

“I'll be here for you, Slivko. You know where to find me,” Conrad murmured, flashing the softest of grins and backing away to go with Marlow and Mason down the bend. 

 

Slivko watched him go, holding back a big sniffle and turning to go and sit by himself at the riverside. Time to collect his thoughts for now. 

 

~*~

 

Marlow had apparently given Mason and Conrad a spiritual sermon. They came out of the shrine like fresh priests and a story about a God. Not the one Slivko worshipped, but a God all the same. A monkey God. Night had fallen and most of the tribe had gone to bed, leaving only a few night owls still up and about to finish their day chores. 

 

Slivko sat with Houston besides the boat, neither up to getting sleep like the girls were. They sat and talked about life while whittling down sticks into trinkets and mindless crafts. Mason and San dozed on the tallgrass that was scythed down from the fields to make a tiny cot, the boys had to stick with the solid earth besides the river. The tribe could only spare so much grass. 

 

Conrad didn't view relaxing amidst death as amusing as the others did. He instead vouched to join Marlow on a little escapade outside of the walls to gather a special fruit native to the island. It was a delicacy, Marlow had said, to be eaten only at the birth of a child, a wedding, a funeral, or a time of impending prosperity. The arrival of outsiders seemed to fit one of the categories. 

 

Gathered at twilight, it would take all night to set the fruit and press them into the treat spoken so highly of. 

 

Slivko has carved his driftwood into something resembling a fish, misshapen and ugly, when the two return. He does  _ not  _ look at the way Conrad has two baskets of large fruit hugged to each side of his chest, because that would be wrong. But Conrad said it was alright, and if Conrad was the captain, what could he do to go against his suggestion? 

 

Saving his ogling for another time, Slivko sets his craft down besides his personal belongings and stands up to greet them. Houston assists in collecting the baskets from the two and Slivko jogs up to help, taking a basket from Marlow and laying them on the sun stained rock by the chieftain’s quarters. Marlow lets loose a boisterous laugh, subdued due to the amount of sleeping residents, but bubbly all the same, and finishes the tale he was telling Conrad to the rest of them. 

 

Houston takes much more interest in the story than Slivko does, who retreats to his things and collects them. He wants to sleep in the boat tonight, away from everything. Saying a brief goodnight, he retreats. 

 

It's while he is in the middle of chasing the first threads of a dream that he is jostled awake by the sound of creaking rust and the tipping of the boat, ever so slightly as a new weight settles onto the vessel. 

 

Immediately connecting the sound to attack, Slivko jolts out of bed and darts for his knife, but a hand clasps around his just as he makes it to the hilt. He traces the arm up to a shoulder and connects it to Conrad's face, staring at him with subtle amusement. 

 

“I'm not here to take up arms, Slivko, calm down,” Conrad smirks as Slivko sighs and drops his blade, sitting upright to say hi.

 

“Then what brings you here, cap’n?” Slivko ventures, “I figure you’re here to talk to me about my  _ problem _ , sir,” he adds respectfully onto the end. Conrad holds back a frown and settles down besides Slivko. The close quarters has a shock running up his spine, suddenly hyper aware of the distance. 

 

“It's not a problem, Slivko. That sort of thinking lands you an old man at age twenty,” he grins, “we’re comfortable enough with one another to not dig old wounds open, eh?” Conrad absentmindedly runs calloused fingers across a recent gash across his forearm, sewed up with twine and a dirty needle. Slivko winces, the mere sight of the gore making his stomach turn. His instant reflex is to want to reach out and touch it, maybe banish the pain with his palm, but he destroys the thought and kicks himself mentally. 

 

The captain continues, “you know, I found myself in the same boat you did when I was fifteen. My mum had trouble accepting the fact that I fancied boys as well as girls. When she saw it didn't affect the way I worked or studied, and that I always kept God as close to my soul as any sweetheart, her disapproval died down. 

 

“Point is, you don't need to limit yourself to tuna if you're feeling haddock that day. And don't let nobody else tell you what to eat, hear?” 

 

Slivko probably blanched half way through the lecture, staring at Conrad like a messiah with big brown eyes. He thought back to the two natives at the banks, saw the freedom with which they lived, and suddenly he didn't feel like hiding in his carefully structured shell anymore. Not with Conrad. 

 

Tears were probably in order, but they didn't fall for reasons unknown. Instead, Slivko turned to Conrad and tucked himself into his chest like a babe to his mama, pressing his forehead to his belly. Relief warmed over his chilled skin when arms came around his shoulders and clutched him close, returning the comfort. 

 

“‘M sorry for being so stuck up, Conrad,” Slivko began, but he was interrupted. 

 

“James. You can call me James, Slivko.”

 

And in the briefest of moments, all the brutality and death that befell them the days beforehand, seemed to be washed away in a simple moment of intimacy that had starved them both for years. 

 

He didn't know how it happened, but they had fallen asleep tangled together in a heap, letting the shallow rocking of the river lull them off to each others heartbeats. It felt nice to let go of his soldier boy self and revert to a sense of being a kid again, basking in affection like a starved pup. 

 

That morning, ‘James’ pouring from Slivko’s lips and ‘Reg’ whispered through Conrad's, he felt that he could start something on this island to make up for all that he had lost on it. James was more than willing to indulge. 

  
  
  
  
**_~FIN~_ **

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like we are just a small family in this fandom who fit on the ship from the movie. Is that what this ship is?


End file.
